Green shoots of recovery appear

The advisory team at Dyke Yaxley Chartered Accountants in Shrewsbury and Telford said the increase was a positive sign that the local economy was on the road to recovery following the Covid-19 pandemic.

Mark Bramall and Francesca Hutcheson jointly lead the Dyke Yaxley corporate finance and tax advisory services team which has a strong pipeline of projects in place. This includes businesses who are either looking to grow through acquiring another company, or entrepreneurs looking to sell their business to someone else.

Mark said: “We believe the increase in sales and purchases activity is largely driven by the pent-up demand from the disruption caused by coronavirus.

“But there are also institutional investors looking to make strategic investments in small and medium sized enterprises in order to drive their returns.”

Francesca said the current tax regime meant that an owner-manager could potentially exit their business and pay a rate of only 10 per cent tax on the first £1 million of gains.

“So if the deal is structured correctly, this can be an extremely tax-efficient way to exit a business and to realise value from their investment in the business."

Dyke Yaxley has advised on several buyer and seller-led transactions over the last 12 months and the advisory team has earned an excellent reputation locally for their specialist services.

Mark said: “In the last few months, we assisted one of our long-standing clients with a multi-million-pound sale of their property-based business to two buyers.

“The deal process itself took around six months to complete, but thanks to our extensive knowledge and understanding of the business from the years we have been acting for the former owners, we were able to ensure the transition was as smooth as possible.

“We are committed to building strong and effective working relationships with all our clients, and we were delighted to have been able to help such a loyal and long-term client achieve their business and personal objectives.”